Questions arise about stem cell breakthrough

Dodgy images and problems with reproducibility reported.

At the end of January, scientists announced a stunning finding: they'd developed a seemingly simple technique that could convert just about any cell to a stem cell using a brief time in acidic conditions. Now, Nature Newsis reporting that one of the researchers involved is under investigation.

The investigation started with some discussions on blogs and a site called PubPeer, where it was noted that some of the images in the investigators' papers (both the new ones on acid treatments as well as older ones) appear to be duplications. That's what has set off the RIKEN investigation. The images in question are a minor part of the paper as a whole, but they've been sufficient to raise doubts about the quality of the work in the papers.

As far as the validity of the work itself, the message so far is mixed. Nature talked to one of the collaborators who had done tests in mice. That individual pointed out that the cells behave unlike any others we know—they have some distinctive features that aren't the product of any of the previously described methods of producing stem cells.

That's the good news. The bad news is that nobody has yet reported being able to independently reproduce the procedure. That's not as bad as it seems. Although the technique sounds simple—just dip them in acid—it's actually highly technical and takes roughly 10 days to get any cells, which provides lots of time for something to go wrong. Even the researchers who've failed to reproduce it aren't surprised by that.

Still, reproduction would have reassured everyone that the technique was valid, even if some images were dodgy. In the meantime, we're left waiting for the results of the investigation, as well as a more detailed description of the technique itself.

34 Reader Comments

I was a bit hopeful, but skeptical when the news first came out, because it seemed to simplistic and the news seemed rushed. However, with the news that no one has been able to reproduce results, it is starting to sound a lot like "cold fusion". This is a disappointing development.

Duplicated control images are probably more common than thought. Either its out of laziness, or it was a placeholder image that was never noticed as such and was never replaced with the correct one. I partly blame crappy data management and workflow systems available to scientists for moving from data acquisition to publication figures. It's a scattershot of different programs, manually copying and pasting, moving back and forth between them. It's not pretty.

It is somewhat concerning that the technique seems to be so difficult that others are having trouble reproducing it.

If it was going to be fraudulent though, I'd have thought that the cells would be described to behave like normal stem cells, whereas these seem to have properties that would be a potential obstacle to their use.

I'm also reminded that hematopoietic stem cells (blood and immune cell precursors) in mice can actually be found to differentiate, and incorporate, into any tissue type to some degree. But I can't find the study in question at the moment...

It seems like converting or otherwise obtaining stem cells isn't the biggest issue. Figuring out the chemical syntax to coax them into becoming whatever we want Fifth Element-style is the real holy grail.

I'm also reminded that hematopoietic stem cells (blood and immune cell precursors) in mice can actually be found to differentiate, and incorporate, into any tissue type to some degree. But I can't find the study in question at the moment...

I want to note that I am not suggesting research misconduct has occurred here, but as an interesting aside, The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) provides several tools which are useful when investigating image manipulation.

I'm also reminded that hematopoietic stem cells (blood and immune cell precursors) in mice can actually be found to differentiate, and incorporate, into any tissue type to some degree. But I can't find the study in question at the moment...

No, that's the subject of the current article. What I'm thinking of is from a few years ago. IIRC, one part of the study was that they interconnected the circulatory systems of two genetically identical mice, one of which expressed GFP in its cells, and found that the other mouse ended up with a smattering of GFP-expressing cells in various tissues. And I think they also isolated the stem cells and injected them into another mouse while they were separate.

It seems like converting or otherwise obtaining stem cells isn't the biggest issue.

Obtaining/converting stem cells is the first issue. It also starts to answer deep questions about cell differentiation. But, in practical terms, the bigger issues don't matter if you can't solve the steps that lead to them.

Quote:

Figuring out the chemical protocol to coax them into becoming whatever we want Fifth Element-style is the real holy grail.

FTFY. Chemistry is not a syntax. Unlike computer languages and software, chemistry and biology involve real, physical things. Read the methods section of any (non-computational) biology paper: it's all about physical actions.

I'm nitpicking on this because I've found that it's far too easy for CS people to think of these things are theoretical constructs or bulletproof recipes, when they're far more about experimental technique, especially at the research stage. Or, more simply, knowing how to read sheet music is a necessary but insufficient step to playing for the London Symphony.

I don't understand why an author would falsify this kind of research. It makes no sense to me.

Something this fundamental to future bio research is going to have thousands of people going back to their labs, scrutinizing the paper and attempting to reproduce the results. There is no chance you can publish something so dramatic, and moreover, testable, and not get caught.

It is purely for that reason that I hope the difficulty with reproducing the results is just procedural, and not an actual issue with falsification.

Duplicated control images are probably more common than thought. Either its out of laziness, or it was a placeholder image that was never noticed as such and was never replaced with the correct one. I partly blame crappy data management and workflow systems available to scientists for moving from data acquisition to publication figures. It's a scattershot of different programs, manually copying and pasting, moving back and forth between them. It's not pretty.

This.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

That said, it's even more disappointing that Nature editors and reviewers aren't attuned to this. IIRC, J. Cell Biol. now routinely screens for this kind of thing. It boggles my mind that the tabloid journals do not.

Quote:

If it was going to be fraudulent though, I'd have thought that the cells would be described to behave like normal stem cells, whereas these seem to have properties that would be a potential obstacle to their use.

I dunno... a small fraud is easier to sell than a big one. On the other hand, it's quite possible that it's neither a real result nor fraud. Sloppy notes combined with optimism and advisor/funding pressure have led to plenty of retractions.

It seems like converting or otherwise obtaining stem cells isn't the biggest issue.

Obtaining/converting stem cells is the first issue. It also starts to answer deep questions about cell differentiation. But, in practical terms, the bigger issues don't matter if you can't solve the steps that lead to them.

Quote:

Figuring out the chemical protocol to coax them into becoming whatever we want Fifth Element-style is the real holy grail.

FTFY. Chemistry is not a syntax. Unlike computer languages and software, chemistry and biology involve real, physical things. Read the methods section of any (non-computational) biology paper: it's all about physical actions.

I'm nitpicking on this because I've found that it's far too easy for CS people to think of these things are theoretical constructs or bulletproof recipes, when they're far more about experimental technique, especially at the research stage. Or, more simply, knowing how to read sheet music is a necessary but insufficient step to playing for the London Symphony.

Yes currently (and for the next 50 -200 years) you can't print a new appendage

Duplicated control images are probably more common than thought. Either its out of laziness, or it was a placeholder image that was never noticed as such and was never replaced with the correct one. I partly blame crappy data management and workflow systems available to scientists for moving from data acquisition to publication figures. It's a scattershot of different programs, manually copying and pasting, moving back and forth between them. It's not pretty.

I agree it's not a smoking gun. But duplicate images are also common in fraud cases. It is a reason for concern and needs to be investigated. I hope the results hold up, but I also wouldn't count on it.

I don't understand why an author would falsify this kind of research. It makes no sense to me.

Something this fundamental to future bio research is going to have thousands of people going back to their labs, scrutinizing the paper and attempting to reproduce the results. There is no chance you can publish something so dramatic, and moreover, testable, and not get caught.

It is purely for that reason that I hope the difficulty with reproducing the results is just procedural, and not an actual issue with falsification.

I guess it depends what your goals are. If your goal is to make a splash and get international attention, then you don't need something that is reproducible or not nonsense. You just need to get published and watch the news scream "stem cells made from normal cells using magic!" and watch that be the byline for lay people forever

FTFY. Chemistry is not a syntax. Unlike computer languages and software, chemistry and biology involve real, physical things. Read the methods section of any (non-computational) biology paper: it's all about physical actions.

I'm nitpicking on this because I've found that it's far too easy for CS people to think of these things are theoretical constructs or bulletproof recipes, when they're far more about experimental technique, especially at the research stage. Or, more simply, knowing how to read sheet music is a necessary but insufficient step to playing for the London Symphony.

Yes, but a good science paper explains the procedure and conditions in excruciating detail -- the kind that another research would likely be able to reproduce. Maybe they really did convert somatic cells into a new kind of stem cell, but that's only half the job. The other half is to explain how you did it. Until you have that reproducability -- it ain't science.

It seems like converting or otherwise obtaining stem cells isn't the biggest issue.

Obtaining/converting stem cells is the first issue. It also starts to answer deep questions about cell differentiation. But, in practical terms, the bigger issues don't matter if you can't solve the steps that lead to them.

Quote:

Figuring out the chemical protocol to coax them into becoming whatever we want Fifth Element-style is the real holy grail.

FTFY. Chemistry is not a syntax. Unlike computer languages and software, chemistry and biology involve real, physical things. Read the methods section of any (non-computational) biology paper: it's all about physical actions.

I'm nitpicking on this because I've found that it's far too easy for CS people to think of these things are theoretical constructs or bulletproof recipes, when they're far more about experimental technique, especially at the research stage. Or, more simply, knowing how to read sheet music is a necessary but insufficient step to playing for the London Symphony.

Yes currently (and for the next 50 -200 years) you can't print a new appendage

FTFY. Chemistry is not a syntax. Unlike computer languages and software, chemistry and biology involve real, physical things. Read the methods section of any (non-computational) biology paper: it's all about physical actions.I'm nitpicking on this because I've found that it's far too easy for CS people to think of these things are theoretical constructs or bulletproof recipes, when they're far more about experimental technique, especially at the research stage. Or, more simply, knowing how to read sheet music is a necessary but insufficient step to playing for the London Symphony.

I can tell you from real life experience that changing a cell from one type to another is far more complicated than it seems. I used to work on trying to convert hematopoietic stem cells into various types of bone cells, especially osteoclasts that chew up bone. We extracted the stem cells from bone marrow from volunteers and treated them with various growth factors and cytokines to induce differentiation under certain conditions.

The results from every replicate was either slightly or completely different, or it simply didn't work about 60% of the time. It would not matter how careful you are in trying to do everything the same exact way because there are way too many variables that can affect cell differentiation. If a different lab tech does it, it takes that person at least a month to be proficient enough in all the techniques involved to make the assay work... and that's with the lead scientist training him/her every day. Many people can't do it simply because their hands to too unsteady, and/or make too many mistakes every time. Seriously, sometimes we thought that the phase of the moon or tidal forces made a difference because slight changes in gravitational acceleration does have an effect on bone cell metabolism, signalling, and differentiation.

If you think making a souffle is hard, I assure you, doing anything with cell differentiation is at least 100 times harder... Makes doing simple molecular biological methods like PCR, ELISA, and western blot seem as simple as a coloring book.

So, yeah, I'm not surprised that other labs have not been able to replicate it yet. I doubt any other labs can replicate our results in less than a year. It took us over 3 years to refine the techniques enough to the point that the assay works 40% of the time. If in a few years other labs can't replicate their technique even after sending people to that lab to train them, then I'd be worried.

Until this result has been reproduced a couple of times, it has to remain tentative, because at present it makes no sense. Why a minor brief excursion to low pH should lead to a complete wiping of some classes of epigenetic programing is difficult to understand. Let alone how. Furthermore, the squeezing is equally difficult to understand, as is any idea of general stressors. Cells are stressed all of the time in labs, as we try to kill them, as in cancer, see what kills them, as in neurodegeneration, and generally try to work out what the mechanisms of cell death are. None of these experiments has led to someone discovering totipotent cells left behind. Although they were not looking for such, like the fabled ice 9, it is difficult to believe that in the billions of wells where biologists have tortured cells over the last 50 years that this phenomenon would not have been induced multiple times and recognized at least once. That being said, reproducibility will reduce my objections to, "S**t sometimes doesn't happen."

Cells are stressed all of the time in labs, as we try to kill them, as in cancer, see what kills them, as in neurodegeneration, and generally try to work out what the mechanisms of cell death are. None of these experiments has led to someone discovering totipotent cells left behind. Although they were not looking for such, like the fabled ice 9, it is difficult to believe that in the billions of wells where biologists have tortured cells over the last 50 years that this phenomenon would not have been induced multiple times and recognized at least once. That being said, reproducibility will reduce my objections to, "S**t sometimes doesn't happen."

You wouldn't really know about totipotency unless you were looking for it, though.

N-rays, polywater, cold fusion ... If science couldn't stand up to a few bogus claims we wouldn't be where we are. I hope their work is genuine but even if it is deliberate fraud life goes on. Some lunatics will claim it means all science is untrustworthy and therefore climate change is a hoax and the Earth is 5,000 years old. In the mean time others will learn and publish the genuine truth of how our cells differentiate.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

Do you use an ELN solution? I'm in virology and I would kill for an ELN system that isn't garbage.

Duplicated control images are probably more common than thought. Either its out of laziness, or it was a placeholder image that was never noticed as such and was never replaced with the correct one. I partly blame crappy data management and workflow systems available to scientists for moving from data acquisition to publication figures. It's a scattershot of different programs, manually copying and pasting, moving back and forth between them. It's not pretty.

This.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

That said, it's even more disappointing that Nature editors and reviewers aren't attuned to this. IIRC, J. Cell Biol. now routinely screens for this kind of thing. It boggles my mind that the tabloid journals do not.

Quote:

If it was going to be fraudulent though, I'd have thought that the cells would be described to behave like normal stem cells, whereas these seem to have properties that would be a potential obstacle to their use.

I dunno... a small fraud is easier to sell than a big one. On the other hand, it's quite possible that it's neither a real result nor fraud. Sloppy notes combined with optimism and advisor/funding pressure have led to plenty of retractions.

Academic policies are enforced lab by lab, PI by PI. Some are better than others. Corporate labs (where I've spent most of my professional life) used to sanctify lab notebooks and countersigning. Failing to maintain good, concise notes was a firable offense. That all changed when the USPTO changed from first to invent to first to file. Now, as long as I maintain "crap, senior scientist Guano got hit by a bus, what now?" procedural/data redundancy, I'm good. And frankly, it was a welcome change, because it freed up at least 10% more of my time to be at the bench.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

Do you use an ELN solution? I'm in virology and I would kill for an ELN system that isn't garbage.

We're currently working through vendor trials to assess the options. I can say first hand that they range from mostly to completely crap. No Wacom tablet support, no love from me. Electronic or not, I need to be able to scribble and draw in a notebook.

Also, most are meant for traceable (read: pharma) ISO controlled environments, which we are not. So not being able to modify/ammend old entries (at least not without difficulty) is a giant PITA. This problem just screams for a FOSS solution.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

Do you use an ELN solution? I'm in virology and I would kill for an ELN system that isn't garbage.

We're currently working through vendor trials to assess the options. I can say first hand that they range from mostly to completely crap. No Wacom tablet support, no love from me. Electronic or not, I need to be able to scribble and draw in a notebook.

Also, most are meant for traceable (read: pharma) ISO controlled environments, which we are not. So not being able to modify/ammend old entries (at least not without difficulty) is a giant PITA. This problem just screams for a FOSS solution.

That's the sort of thing I've been hearing. A few of my colleagues in academia have been starting to use OneNote, but I'm concerned about it being a little too fluid (in the sense that anything could be edited at any time) for formal record-keeping, not to mention somewhat iffy support for external files, especially where proprietary other software is concerned.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

Do you use an ELN solution? I'm in virology and I would kill for an ELN system that isn't garbage.

We're currently working through vendor trials to assess the options. I can say first hand that they range from mostly to completely crap. No Wacom tablet support, no love from me. Electronic or not, I need to be able to scribble and draw in a notebook.

Also, most are meant for traceable (read: pharma) ISO controlled environments, which we are not. So not being able to modify/ammend old entries (at least not without difficulty) is a giant PITA. This problem just screams for a FOSS solution.

That's the sort of thing I've been hearing. A few of my colleagues in academia have been starting to use OneNote, but I'm concerned about it being a little too fluid (in the sense that anything could be edited at any time) for formal record-keeping, not to mention somewhat iffy support for external files, especially where proprietary other software is concerned.

I'm tangentially pharma, and our current solution has robust version tracking, but the way it's implemented/talks to the database is awful. Not to mention the closing/completing old projects/experiments is really counterintuitive. And like you said, no support for tablets which really goes against the way I normally document in my print notebook. Some of that is the way that our higher ups chose to organize it, but the user-interface is garbage.

I'm gonna dedicate part of the summer to trying to improve my own workflow in the ELN, but I don't have high hopes.

My first reaction on this paper was "this is either Nobel prize in 5 years, or second Hwang Woo Suk". Actually, I think that "investigation" means nothing right now, because it only tells us that some pictures have been mixed and that "it's not only a f*king acid bath". Which (the second part) is a good thing, I feel. What conserns me is that all positive results till now seem to be directly connected with Obokata herself, which kind of reminds me the case of Karel Bezouška. Nevertheless, I'll enjoy the continuation...

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

Do you use an ELN solution? I'm in virology and I would kill for an ELN system that isn't garbage.

I haven't looked recently, but I've never found an ELN that was permanent, flexible, and not a complete hassle. I find that it's much easier to derive equations on paper, and it's far easier to sketch diagrams/schematics on paper. I do a lot of both. The context change also helps to prevent RSI and slows me down enough to force me to think over things while I'm working. My mind engages problems better when it has a conversation, and keeping somewhat detailed notes is like having a conversation with myself.

Not that it matters in computational work, but the Bulletproof inks chemically bond with cellulose and cannot be washed out with water, acetone, or ethanol. When I worked at a bench, I liked having the lab book near me. I've seen (and had) enough spills with caustic reagents like 10M NaOH to dissuade me from bringing expensive computer equipment anywhere near the bench.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

Do you use an ELN solution? I'm in virology and I would kill for an ELN system that isn't garbage.

I haven't looked recently, but I've never found an ELN that was permanent, flexible, and not a complete hassle. I find that it's much easier to derive equations on paper, and it's far easier to sketch diagrams/schematics on paper. I do a lot of both. The context change also helps to prevent RSI and slows me down enough to force me to think over things while I'm working. My mind engages problems better when it has a conversation, and keeping somewhat detailed notes is like having a conversation with myself.

Not that it matters in computational work, but the Bulletproof inks chemically bond with cellulose and cannot be washed out with water, acetone, or ethanol. When I worked at a bench, I liked having the lab book near me. I've seen (and had) enough spills with caustic reagents like 10M NaOH to dissuade me from bringing expensive computer equipment anywhere near the bench.

All good points. I have been pen and papering since I started undergrad research in 2003 and the system makes sense to me, but even making a ToC for my lab notebooks, tabbing relevant pages, keeping printouts of common protocols and adding 'refer to experiment on Colm Notebook 4, pp 23, this is a direct replicate' it's hard to keep track of everything I need, not to mentiont hat a lot of my output data are digital, spreadsheets, scanned western blots, mass-spec runs and as much as I love writing out protocols, a digital solution is getting beyond necessary for me.*

The biggest disconnect for me with ELN systems is like you point out, the danger to the recording device in the lab. I work with a lot of fairly nasty pathogens, and we're not supposed to bring digital equipment in and out of viral/bacterial rooms, so we have to make protocols in ELN, print them out, annotate them as we work, come back, re-input them and hope we didn't forget to note something because our hands were in the fume hood and deconning out to make a note would have made us miss a timepoint. Not that the above problem is unique to ELN systems, but it's a more expensive problem with a Wacom or an iPad than with my bound hardcover notebook.

*Jesus christ, that was all one sentence? My committee is going to stab me in the face after reading my dissertation.

"The protocol might just be complicated — even Wakayama has been having trouble reproducing the results. He and a student in his laboratory did replicate the experiment independently before publication, after being well coached by Obokata. But since he moved to Yamanashi, he has had no luck. “It looks like an easy technique — just add acid — but it’s not that easy,” he says."

That is two hall marks of scam - extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence and reproducing results tied to the discoverer - making the work unlikely.

But the claim of Vacanti ("Vacanti says that he has had no problem repeating the experiment ...”) is preventing claims of outright fraud. So this may be the hole in the ship:

"Vacanti has made revolutionary claims in the past that have not been easy for most labs to reproduce. These have concerned "spore-like" cells (or VSELs - Very Small Embryonic Like stem-cells), which were claimed to be virtually indestructable. In the interview linked above, Vacanti makes the claim that STAP cells are probably VSELs."

"The protocol might just be complicated — even Wakayama has been having trouble reproducing the results. He and a student in his laboratory did replicate the experiment independently before publication, after being well coached by Obokata. But since he moved to Yamanashi, he has had no luck. “It looks like an easy technique — just add acid — but it’s not that easy,” he says."

That is two hall marks of scam - extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence and reproducing results tied to the discoverer - making the work unlikely.

This conclusion is unwarranted. As others in the field have commented, these kinds of experiments are quite tricky.

Before we start calling people frauds, let's wait for the institutional review, or other evidence. Unreproducible experiments, themselves, are not grounds to call someone a fraud. There's no reason to crucify scientists who may be innocent.

"The protocol might just be complicated — even Wakayama has been having trouble reproducing the results. He and a student in his laboratory did replicate the experiment independently before publication, after being well coached by Obokata. But since he moved to Yamanashi, he has had no luck. “It looks like an easy technique — just add acid — but it’s not that easy,” he says."

That is two hall marks of scam - extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence and reproducing results tied to the discoverer - making the work unlikely.

I think that it is premature to reach any conclusions.

As an example, Wilmut and Campbell tried 277 times to generate an cloned embryo that developed into a live lamb; part of their experimental approach required working out some (but not all) of the variables involved. A process with a 1 in 277 success rate is difficult to reproduce.

Did Illmensee fake his mouse cloning experiments? The procedure he used seems similar to the Wilmut and Campbell procedure, but Illmensee had less control of (and much less understanding of) the variables than they did. Wilmut seemed to think that Illmensee was unjustly accused of fraud. I have never seen any definitive unravelling of the case.

For the STAP cells, I am withholding judgment, and I would suggest that, in the absence of evidence, people refrain from making accusations.

Duplicated control images are probably more common than thought. Either its out of laziness, or it was a placeholder image that was never noticed as such and was never replaced with the correct one. I partly blame crappy data management and workflow systems available to scientists for moving from data acquisition to publication figures. It's a scattershot of different programs, manually copying and pasting, moving back and forth between them. It's not pretty.

This.

I do wish biology labs enforced somewhat stricter lab notebook standards. My undergrad training, as a chemist, was to keep the lab book as if it could be submitted to the patent office at any time. Many synthetic chemistry labs manage to keep similar standards. It's a hassle in the short run, but often pays off in the long run. As a computational scientist, I occasionally fall of the bandwagon here, but always regret when I do so, usually six months down the road.

That said, it's even more disappointing that Nature editors and reviewers aren't attuned to this. IIRC, J. Cell Biol. now routinely screens for this kind of thing. It boggles my mind that the tabloid journals do not.

Quote:

If it was going to be fraudulent though, I'd have thought that the cells would be described to behave like normal stem cells, whereas these seem to have properties that would be a potential obstacle to their use.

I dunno... a small fraud is easier to sell than a big one. On the other hand, it's quite possible that it's neither a real result nor fraud. Sloppy notes combined with optimism and advisor/funding pressure have led to plenty of retractions.

I dont thikn the problem lies in bio labs specifically. Its up to the PI to implement stricter standards in each lab and specifically to make sure those standards are being maintained. I worked in one bio lab where you were "required" to keep a lab notebook, but it was never read by anyone other than myself and the PI was idifferent when it came to iuncluding figures, dates, or even legibility. My current bio lab is much stricter. Weekly group meetings where I have to present straight from my lab notebook. All figures must be in my lab notebook the minute they are completed. If I fail to put even a simple protocol that ive already memorized on a day that I did the experiment, I get in trouble.

I don't feel that a strict notebook keeping policy is something really necessary. In my opinion, the case is simple - your experiment do work or do not work. Either you have the data or you don't. Either you can explain how you achieved that data, or you can't.I think that lab notebook is something that good scientist should keep for themselves and for their own thoughts, and for that it is an important part of our work. But I can write pretty much anything in it, and the fact something is written there should not be considered as a proof of something.Don't get me wrong - in the end, a scientist should be able to present a protocol when asked to. But I don't really think that the fact that he has it in his notebook or not changes anything. What matters to me is whether the scientist is able to reproduce his results or not.